LURCH THE BUTLER
(The Addams Family)
( Cemetery - 13
001 Cemetery Lane
Greenbriar, USA
Lurch is a towering zombie butler. He works
for Gomez Addams, an eccentric cigar-smoking
millionaire. Lurch performs such domestic
duties as dusting strange family heirlooms
and answering the call of a droning two-note
fog horn that announces the arrival of
guests at the front door.

When the Addams want to summon Lurch, they pull
the butler's hangman-shaped bell pull dangling
from the ceiling that sends out a resounding
"Gong!" Lurch then enters the room and in a deep
voice says "You Rang?" as well as other short
groaning phrases like "Follow Me", "Mail's In",
and "Yes, Mrs. Addams." In between his domestic
duties, Lurch likes to play the harpsichord.

Lurch's character was featured on episodes:

No. 13 "Lurch
Learns to Dance" when Lurch takes dance lessons
so he can attend the upcoming Butlers Ball.

No.
17 "Mother Lurch Visits the Addams Family" when
Lurch convinces his employers to act as his
servants to impress his visiting mother.

No. 25
"Lurch and His Harpsichord" when Lurch is upset
when the Addams donate their harpsichord to a
museum.

No. 33 "Lurch, the Teenage Idol" when
Lurch records a song and is surrounded by
screaming teenage fans.

No. 61 "Lurch's Little
Helper" when Lurch feels he is being replaced by
the new robot butler.

No. 63 "Lurch's Grand
Romance" when Lurch falls in love with a family
friend. Note: In the 1998 remake series we also learn that
Lurch is colorblind, that Morticia dug him up in
a cemetery and that once Lurch tried to smile
and his face broke.

Three
Incarnations of Lurch the Butler

Ted Cassidy

Cartoon Lurch

John DeSantis

"The Addams Family" (Lyrics by Vic Mizzy)

They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all together ooky,
The Addams Family.
Their house is a museum
Where people come to see 'em
They really are a scream
The Addams Family.
(Neat)
(Sweet)
(Petite)
So get a witches shawl on
A broomstick you can crawl on
We're gonna pay a call on
The Addams Family.

Lurch entertains the Addams

TRIVIA NOTE: The deep base tone of Lurch's voice
could also be heard saying "Neat, Sweet, and
Petite" between stanzas of 'The Addams Family'
theme song.

On the October 30, 1965 Halloween
episode of SHINDIG, an ABC teen rock music
program, Lurch performed a dance called
“The
Lurch.” After assisting Boris Karloff with
his rendition of the "Monster Mash," Lurch
debuted a new dance craze called "The Lurch."
The dance steps were nothing more than a lot of
shuffling and arm dangling a la the Frankenstein
Monster.

"The Lurch" was released as a single 45 record
(Capitol 5503) with the vocals performed by Ted
Cassidy [who played the role of Lurch] and a
background female chorus with music by Gary
Paxton.

The Lurch character also appeared in the
Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon The Addams Family
that
aired Saturday mornings on NBC from September
1973 to August 1975; "Halloween with the New
Addams Family" 1977 special, a second animated
Addams Family ran on Saturday mornings on ABC
from September 1992 to January 1995; the motion
picture remakes The Addams Family: The Movie
(1991) and The Addams Family Values (1993); and
the sitcom remake THE NEW ADDAMS
FAMILY/FOX/1998-99 (with John DeSantis as
Lurch).

The Lurch character is based on the
Addams Family cartoon characters created by
Charles Addams for the New Yorker magazine.

Happy Halloween

TED CASSIDY: Born Theodore Crawford Cassidy on
July 31, 1932 in Pittsburg, PA and raised in Phillippi, WV. the 6' 9" tall Ted Cassidy began
his days in the spotlight by playing college
basketball at Stetson University in the 1960s
and as a staff announcer for WFAA radio in
Dallas where he interviewed William and Gayle
Newman, witnesses to the Kennedy assassination.

Cassidy's acting career included such
memorable roles as Harvey Logan in the film Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid; Injun Joe in "THE
NEW ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN", Ruk, the bald
android in the STAR TREK episode "What Are
Little Girls Made Of?", and the narrator (uncredited)
of "THE INCREDIBLE HULK" series.

Ted Cassidy died January 16, 1979 in Los Angeles
from complications following open-heart surgery.
His cremated remains were buried in the backyard
of his Woodland Hills home.